somewhere down that lazy river

The San Juan, in SE Utah, is the river I did my first river trip on, in 1990 when Britt and I had just started living together. It was also the last river trip that we did in 1998, just before selling our raft along with everything else we owned in order to buy a sailboat and goof off for a couple of years. The San Juan funnels all the water from SW Colorado and NW New Mexico through classic Utah sandstone canyons and into the Colorado River at Lake Powell, and was home to both pre-Puebloan native cultures and Mormon settlers. A few years ago, I bought a small paddle cataraft, but I only used it once since Britt didn't have a boat. But when Britt's niece's husband Dublin invited us to come with him and some friends on a San Juan trip, Britt immediately decided he'd better buy one as well.





( More about our boats. )

Dublin's friends had only time for a weekend trip, and so they had registered for a permit (the San Juan is lottery-controlled) for only the 28 miles from Sand Island to Mexican Hat. The next stretch of the river, to Clay Hills, goes through the fabled Goosenecks of the San Juan, where the river folds back on itself in big lazy loops, and we would have loved to do that too, but unfortunately there were no available permit slots. Instead we extended our trip by putting in a day and a half early at Montezuma Creek, 19 miles upstream from Sand Island. This rarely-floated stretch (we hadn't done it before) has no rapids and runs mostly through private land, but permits are free from the BLM and easily available.

( Montezuma Creek to Sand Island - cliffs and inscriptions )

( Sand Island to Mexican Hat - petroglyphs and rapids )

All 18 photos are here in a set on Flickr.